This was my first time cooking with lobster. It was a bit intimidating, but a lot less so with the help of the internets. I was told that I had a few choices about how to cook the thing, and I chose to steam it. Notice how the color of the shell changed, indicating the lobster was ready? That’s a sign that God exists.

The place I’d love to be.

Who doesn’t want to be steamed and scalded?

The recipe called for the lobster to be retained in the shell at this stage, but I disagreed. I thought I’d prefer to remove the shell now, while it was relatively easy and clean, instead of later on. So, being an independent-minded sort, that’s exactly what I did.

All that lobster yields so little lobster.

The rest of the cooking is pretty straightforward. Add the oil and everything except the lobster and cook for a while, until you like the look of the egg and the scallions.

The next stage of the cooking process.

Then add in the lobster.

The best part.

Cook for just long enough to warm the lobster and you’re done.

Lobster is so good.

If I had it to do again, I’d probably use one less hot pepper, but you do you!

This recipe is a winner. I’ve modified it slightly so it’s somewhat less dry; otherwise the original is just as good. The ingredients are:

Chicken, 3 large breasts

Onions, 2 large, diced

Diced Tomatoes, 2 cans

Garlic, 5 cloves, sliced or minced

Ginger, 1 tablespoon, minced

Jalapeno, 1-2, diced

Cilantro, 3 tablespoons, chopped

Parsley, 2 tablespoons, chopped

Chicken stock, 4 cups

Basmati rice, 2 cups

Loomi, 2-3

Green cardamom, 5 pods

Cloves, ground, 1/4 teaspoon

Cinnamon stick, 1

Salt, 2½ teaspoons

Turmeric, 1 teaspoon

Baharat, 1 tablespoon

Rosewater for sprinkling

Ghee, 3 tablespoons

Vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons

The ingredients.

Again, some of these ingredients may be hard to find. This is rosewater, and you can find it online, though you may also be able to find it at your local Asian market.

Rose water.

These are loomi; again, they can be found online, or at your local spice merchant.

Loomi

Finally, this is baharat, a spice mixture. If you’re so inclined, you can try making it yourself, but as you can see, I bought mine.

Baharat.

First, do some frying: heat the oil, and brown the chicken on both sides, then remove.

Browning.

Golden.

Next, add the ghee to the oil that remains and fry the onions until they start to brown.

Ghee, pre-melt.

Onions, pre-brown.

You can use this time to prep the next ingredients – the jalapeno, ginger, and garlic. Then add them to the pot and saute for another 2-3 minutes.

Three ingredients.

Added to the pot.

Then add more stuff – the baharat and turmeric, to be exact – and cook for another minute or two.

Spices added.

Now the chicken goes back in, along with a few other choice ingredients: the tomatoes, loomi, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and chicken stock. Make sure you perforate the loomi with innumerable holes before you plunk them in; a knife will do fine.

More stuff goes in.

And the chicken broth, too.

Bring the pot to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Let it simmer, covered, for an hour or so. Meanwhile, you can prep the cilantro, parsley, and the rice. Make sure that you soak the rice in water for at least 20 minutes.

Rice is nice.

When the pot is done simmering, you should simmer it some more – but this time, with the rice and the herbs added to the pot. Let it alone for another 20 minutes, so that the rice has time to soak up the liquid.

Post-simmer AND pre-simmer.

Finally, sprinkle with the rosewater, which is optional but recommended. 1-2 tablespoons should be enough, but feel free to adjust to your own liking.

Voila.

You can also shred the chicken if you want; it’ll probably end up that way anyway: it’s so tender it tends to fall apart. And it’s delicious. Highly recommended!

This recipe is delish, delish, delish. Absolutely and easily one of our favorites. We can’t recommend it enough! The ingredients:

Chicken breasts, 3, cut into skewer-worthy chunks

Yogurt, 1 cup

Lemon juice, 1 tablespoon

Cumin, 2 teaspoons

Cinnamon, 1 teaspoon

Cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoons

Black pepper, 2 teaspoons

Ginger, 1 tablespoon, fresh minced

Salt, 1 teaspoon

Butter, 1 tablespoon

Garlic, 1 clove, minced

Jalapeno pepper, 2, sliced

Cumin, 2 more teaspoons

Paprika, 2 teaspoons

Salt, 1 teaspoon or to taste

Cilantro, 1/4 cup chopped

Heavy cream, 1 cup

Tomato sauce, 2 cans

The ingredients.

Sadly, this recipe takes a while to make – but the wait is worth it. The first step is to combine the yogurt, lemon juice, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger, a teaspoon of salt, and 2 teaspoons of cumin in a large bowl. Mix it together, and coat the chunks of chicken in it. Cover and refrigerator for at least an hour.

The marinade, part 1.

The marinade, part 2.

Meanwhile, you may want to begin heating your grill (we used charcoal). Make sure to oil the grill grate, as this will help you later on. Once the chicken is finished marinading, thread it onto skewers (if you’re using wood, like we did, make sure to soak it first).

Chicken, skewed.

Then, you know, place them on the grill! Turn as needed, until done.

Chicken, grilled.

This is what that looks like, by the way:

Chicken, grilled, part 2.

The next stage begins with heat: frying the jalapeno slices and garlic in the butter.

The wok stage.

Then add in the rest of the cumin and salt, as well as the paprika.

Wokking some spices.

Pour in the tomato sauce and cream, and simmer on low heat for a few minutes, to thicken the sauce.

It took a while to make, too – though I do have a few ideas for how it could be improved.

The ingredients.

The first step is to blend! Roughly chop two of the onions, and combine them with the cilantro, hot pepper, garlic, ginger, water, and half the almonds.

Blending can be fun.

Blend to a smooth paste, transfer to a bowl, and set aside.

The aftermath.

Next, heat half the ghee with half the oil and fry the rest of the onion (after you slice it, of course) until it’s golden brown. When it is, transfer to another dish – yes, another one!

Onions are yummy.

Browned!

Then fry the remaining almonds briefly until they’re golden, too. Or more golden, at any rate.

Browning almonds.

Transfer them – yes, you guessed it – to another plate, and then start searing the meat, in batches. Add more oil/ghee if you need to.

Browning meat.

The meat, seared.

Once all the meat is browned and moved out of the way – perhaps to another plate – you can put the blended mixture into the pot, and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Then stir in all the additional spices, as well as salt and pepper to taste.

Re-heating the blended mixture.

Plus spices.

Next, lower the heat and slowly mix in the yogurt. Then return the meat to the pot, cover it tightly, and simmer over a gentle heat for 45 minutes to tenderize the meat.

Simmer.

Meanwhile, you can begin working on the other part of the biryani mixture – the rice. You should soak the rice in a bowl of cold water for 15-20 minutes, and begun heating your chicken broth.

Chicken broth!

Heat to a boil, then add the rice (along with a little salt) and bring it back to a boil. Then cover and cook for 5 minutes.

With rice!

After that, it’ll look like this: the chicken broth has magically disappeared, and the rice got a lot bigger. I wonder what happened?

And now, just rice.

Add the rice to your chicken mixture (I used a slow cooker because I didn’t have a dutch oven big enough), and add the onions and almonds as well. Cover securely, and bake on high for about an hour (or 45 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 325).

Biryani-ing.

Voila! It can be spruced up with more spices – in particular, more salt and cayenne – as well as some fried eggs and possibly some Sriracha.

Sadly, this recipe was a failure. Admittedly, I made the dish with fillets instead of whole fish, and that may have made a difference. But as it was, it was barely edible. So naturally, you’ll want to know the recipe. The ingredients are:

Fish, cod or some other white fish, 1.5 pounds (again, I used fillets rather than a whole fish)

Jalapeno peppers, 2, sliced

Pickled plums, 3, slivered

Lime juice, 2 tablespoons

White wine, 1 tablespoon

Ginger, slivered, 2 tablespoons

Fish sauce, 1 tablespoon

Salt, 1/2 teaspoon

Ground white pepper, 1/2 teaspoon

The ingredients.

The unique ingredient here is pickled plum. I found mine at a Japanese grocery.

The pickled plums.

This is what they look like, in case you’re curious.

The pickled plums.

The first step is to coat the fish in the salt and pepper, which I did by shaking it in a bag, like so.

Prepping the fish.

Then place it on a steaming plate.

Steaming.

Add in the rest of the ingredients as well.

Steaming.

Then cover and steam for 30 minutes, and you’re done. Enjoy? I didn’t, but as I said – if you use a whole fish, you may have better results.

Some of the ingredients are a little obscure. For instance, ground sichuan pepper isn’t something you can find anywhere; I had to specially order mine.

Sichuan pepper.

Also, black vinegar(on the left) which you may also have to specially order.

Black vinegar.

The first step is to marinate the chicken: mix the cornstarch, sake, and soy sauce together until the former is dissolved. Then add the chicken and coat it as completely as you can. Let it marinate for about 10 minutes at room temperature.

The marinade.

Marinading.

Secondly, prepare the sauce by combining the black vinegar, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, sugar, cornstarch, and Sichuan pepper together in another bowl. Again, mix until everything is dissolved, and then set aside.

The sauce.

Prep the veggies.

Next, heat a wok, add the peanut oil, and then add the chilis, stir-frying for about 30 seconds. You’ll notice that the chilis start to blacken, and smoke in a way that may make you wheeze.

Chili-frying.

Then add the chicken mixture and cook until the chicken is no longer pink.

Chicken-frying.

This is the part of the story where you add everything else. First, the garlic and ginger, frying them for 30 seconds or so. Then, the sauce mixture.

Chili-chicken-sauce frying.

Then add the veggies, peanuts, and everything else.

Just fry everything.

I think you’ll find it’s delicious – nearly as good as what you’d get from a restaurant!

This is one of my favorite dishes to make. It’s delicious, it tastes fresh, and it’s spicy (though you can make yours less so if you wish). The ingredients are:

Chicken (2-3 pounds)

Cilantro (2 bunches)

Jalapeno Peppers (5-6, or less if you wish)

Onion (3 medium)

Garlic (6-7 cloves)

Ginger (2-3 inch, peeled and fresh)

Green bell peppers (3 or so)

Tomatoes (3 or so)

Salt

Oil

The ingredients.

The first step is to cut up the chicken. Then, season liberally with salt – I’d say 3-4 tablespoons worth. Set aside for a bit.

Chicken chunks

Chicken chunks in salt.

The next step is making the coriander marinade. Doing so will probably require a few runs though your blender, depending on what its capacity is. Basically, you’ll want to add together the coriander, onion, garlic, ginger, and jalapeno pepper, and blend it all together. When you do so, it may help you (again, depending on your blender) to add a bit of water to the bottom.

The cilantro.

Plus ginger and garlic.

Plus onion.

Plus hot pepper.

The blending should yield a delicious-looking sauce like this:

The sauce.

Add it to the chicken, and marinade for 30 minutes or so.

Marinading.

Meanwhile, you can slice up the peppers and tomatoes; I do it like so:

Tomatoes and bell peppers and steel bowls, oh my!

When you’re ready, add some oil to your pan (I use coconut oil), and then add the chicken/marinade mixture.

A bit of oil never hurt anybody.

Add it to the pan.

Cook until the chicken is partially cooked through, and then add your tomatoes and bell peppers. Continue cooking until the chicken is done, and the peppers and tomatoes ahve reached your desired level of crunchiness/softness. You may want to cover the pan during this time. When you’re done, the sauce won’t have the same vibrant green color anymore, but it’ll still taste fresh and delicious. Serve over rice, and enjoy.

Vindaloo is one of my favorite Indian curries, both because of the heat and because of the flavor. But the flavor can vary, depending on the recipe, and you don’t have to make it hot if you don’t want to. I particularly love the flavor of this recipe. The ingredients are:

Chicken (2 lbs)

Onions (4 medium, chopped)

Ginger (2 tablespoons, chopped)

Garlic (10 cloves, chopped)

Tomato sauce (1.5 cups)

Coconut milk (1 cup)

White vinegar (1/2 cup)

Plain yogurt (1/2 cup)

Ground coriander (2 tbsp)

Ground cumin (2 tsp)

Salt (1 tsp)

Tumeric (1/2 tsp)

Cayenne pepper (1 tsp+)

This time, I made the recipe using only a single teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and it’s nowhere near as hot as it ought to be. So you may want to use more – and, if you get it wrong, you can always add more in, after the fact.

The ingredients.

The first step is to add the oil to your pan and cook the onions, garlic, and ginger over medium-high heat for about five minutes, until golden brown.

Onions in a pan.

Oh, and garlic and ginger, too.

Now brown.

Next, add your colorful mix of spices – the coriander, cumin, salt, tumeric, and cayenne pepper – and the tomato sauce, and partially cover and simmer for at least five minutes, or until a thin film of oil begins to form on the surface. Then remove from the heat and let cool for a few minutes.

Colorful spices in a colorful bowl.

Adding the spices and the tomato sauce.

Next, place the sauce in a blender, and blend until smooth.

Put the stuff in the blender.

Blend.

Then return the sauce to the pan and add the chicken, too. simmer for five minutes or so, until the chicken is partially cooked.

Adding the chicken.

Next, stir in the vinegar and the coconut milk. Simmer until the chicken is no longer pink in the center – for another 10 minutes, say.

That beautiful orange glow.

The final step is adding the yogurt. Don’t just plop it in; whisk it first until you have a smooth mixture. Keep cooking for another minute or so, just to warm the yogurt; then you’re done! Enjoy.

Versions of this dish are prevalent in central Africa; it’s considered the national dish of the Congo. The first time I made it, I more or less followed this recipe; the feedback I got was that I should add more tomatoes. Accordingly, the ingredients were as follows:

Chicken breasts (two)

Lemon juice (6 tbsp)

Paprika (1 tsp)

Salt (2 tsp)

Cayenne Pepper (2 tsp)

Coconut oil (2 tbsp)

Onion (2 large, chopped)

Garlic (6 cloves, minced)

Ginger (1-inch piece, minced)

Diced Tomatoes (4 14-oz cans)

Peanut butter (1 cup)

Collard greens (1/2 bunch, shredded)

The original recipe calls for palm oil instead of coconut, so if you can find it (unlike me) you may want to use that instead.

It’s not really enough marinade to immerse the chicken, so I just made sure the breasts were coated, and let them set. I also cut the breasts in half, making each one half as thick as it was before. But you do you. You may also want to shred the collard greens, and remove the thick stems.

Collard green pieces.

Next, melt the oil and start frying the onions – cook until browned, and then add the garlic and cook for another minute before adding the chicken and browning it as well (it’s a big browning party!)

Adding the oil

Adding the onions

Browning the onions

Browning the chicken.

Browning the chicken.

Once the chicken is browned a bit, add the tomatoes, the peanut butter, and the collard greens. Then cover and simmer for an hour.

Adding the tomatoes.

Adding the collard greens.

Adding the peanut butter.

…And voila! I think the mixture of tomatoes and peanut butter is very tasty. Enjoy!

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A Thought

"When someone works for less pay then she can live on – when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently – then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philantropists of our society."